Developing Tailor-Made Microbial Consortium for Effluent Remediation

The work describes a biofilm-based soluble sulphate reduction system, which can treat up to 1600 ppm of soluble sulphate within 3.5 hours of incubation to discharge level under ambient condition using a well-characterized sulphate-reducing bacterial (SRB) consortium. This system ensures the treatment of 1509 litres of sulphate solution in 24 hours using a 220-litre bioreactor. Performance of the system during series operation was compromised, indicating the presence of inhibitor in solution at a toxic level. A single unit bioreactor would be the ideal configuration for this consortium. Modified designs of bioreactors were tested for optimization of the process using response surface methodology (RSM), where the system could function optimally at an initial sulphate concentration of 1250 ppm with a flow rate of 1.8 litre/hour. The time course of sulphate reduction yielded a parabolic profile (with coefficient of determination r 2 = 0.99 and p value < 0.05). The rate of sulphate reduction was found to be independent of seasonal variation as well as the specific design characteristic

Kinetic study of the biodegradation of acephate by indigenous soil bacterial isolates in the presence of humic acid and metal ions

Many bacteria have the potential to use specific pesticides as a source of carbon, phosphorous, nitrogen and sulphur. Acephate degradation by microbes is considered to be a safe and effective method. The overall aim of the present study was to identify acephate biodegrading microorganisms and to investigate the degradation rates of acephate under the stress of humic acid and most common metal ions Fe(III) and copper Cu(II). Pseudomonas azotoformanss strain ACP1, Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain ACP2, and Pseudomonas putida ACP3 were isolated from acephate contaminated soils. Acephate of concentration 100 ppm was incubated with separate strain inoculums and periodic samples were drawn for UV—visible, FTIR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy) and MS (Mass Spectrometry) analysis. Methamidophos, S-methyl O-hydrogen phosphorothioamidate, phosphenothioic S-acid, and phosphenamide were the major metabolites formed during the degradation of acephate. The rate of degradation was applied using pseudo-first-order kinetics to calculate the half-life (t1/2) values, which were 14.33–16.72 d−1 (strain(s) + acephate), 18.81–21.50 d−1 (strain(s) + acephate + Cu(II)), 20.06 –23.15 d−1 (strain(s) + acephate + Fe(II)), and 15.05–17.70 d−1 (strains + acephate + HA). The biodegradation efficiency of the three bacterial strains can be ordered as P. aeruginosa > P. putida > P. azotoformans. The present study illustrated the decomposition mechanism of acephate under different conditions, and the same may be applied to the removal of other xenobiotic compound

Microbe-Based Strategy for Plant Nutrient Management

The rapid industrialization and urbanization of developing countries such as India have encroached on cultivable lands to meet the demands of an ever-increasing population. The altered land use patterns with increased fertilizer use has increased crop yields with leaching of major portion of the applied nutrients from the soil. Nitrates and phosphates are the agricultural pollutants that are discharged into aquifers due to anthropogenic reasons causing severe environmental and health problems. Production of these nutrients requires energy and finite resources (rock phosphate, which has gradually depleting reserves). An alternative management strategy would be to sequester excess nutrients within a biomass that is reused for agriculture. Two discrete enriched microbial consortia with the potential of simultaneous nitrate and phosphate sequestration upon application as biofertilizer restricted them within the plant root zone, ensuring prevention of eutrophication through leaching while making it available for uptake by plants. The nutrient accumulated biomass enhanced the crop yield by 21.88% during mung bean cultivation with maintained elemental content and other nutritional qualities. The major drawback of conventional biofertilizer application (slow release and action) could be overcome using this formulation leading to environmental protection, crop yield enhancement and soil fertility maintenance post-cultivation

Novel Microbial System Developed from Low-Level Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant for Environmental Sustenance

A packed bed bioreactor efficiently treated low-level radioactive waste for years with a retention time of 24 h using acetate as the sole carbon source. However, there was generation of dead biomass. This bioreactor biomass was used to develop a bacterial consortium, which could perform the function within 4 h while simultaneously accumulating nitrate and phosphate. The dead mass was negligible. Serial dilution technique was used to isolate the world’s first pure culture of a nitrate accumulating strain from this consortium. This isolate could simultaneously accumulate nitrate and phosphate from solution. Its ability to form biofilm helped develop a packed bed bioreactor system for waste water treatment, which could optimally remove 94.46% nitrate within 11 h in batch mode while 8 h in continuous mode from waste water starting from 275 ppm of nitrate. The conventional approach revealed the strain to be a member of genus Bacillus but showed distinct differences with the type strains. Further insilico analysis of the draft genome and the putative protein sequences using the bioinformatics tools revealed the strain to be a novel variant of genus Bacillus. The sequestered nitrate and phosphate within the cell were visualized through electron microscopy and explained the reason behind the ability of the isolate to accumulate 1.12 mg of phosphate and 1.3 gm of nitrate per gram of wet weight. Transcriptome analysis proposed the mechanism behind the accumulation of nitrate and phosphate in case of this novel bacterial isolate (MCC 0008). The strain with the sequestered nutrients work as biofertilizer for yield enhancement in case of mung bean while maintaining soil fertility post-cultivation

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Production of He-4 and (4) in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S=2.76 TeV at the LHC

Results on the production of He-4 and (4) nuclei in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S = 2.76 TeV in the rapidity range vertical bar y vertical bar <1, using the ALICE detector, are presented in this paper. The rapidity densities corresponding to 0-10% central events are found to be dN/dy4(He) = (0.8 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.3 (syst)) x 10(-6) and dN/dy4 = (1.1 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.2 (syst)) x 10(-6), respectively. This is in agreement with the statistical thermal model expectation assuming the same chemical freeze-out temperature (T-chem = 156 MeV) as for light hadrons. The measured ratio of (4)/He-4 is 1.4 +/- 0.8 (stat) +/- 0.5 (syst). (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Search for supersymmetry in events with one lepton and multiple jets in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

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Measurement of t(t)over-bar normalised multi-differential cross sections in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV, and simultaneous determination of the strong coupling strength, top quark pole mass, and parton distribution functions

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An embedding technique to determine ττ backgrounds in proton-proton collision data

An embedding technique is presented to estimate standard model tau tau backgrounds from data with minimal simulation input. In the data, the muons are removed from reconstructed mu mu events and replaced with simulated tau leptons with the same kinematic properties. In this way, a set of hybrid events is obtained that does not rely on simulation except for the decay of the tau leptons. The challenges in describing the underlying event or the production of associated jets in the simulation are avoided. The technique described in this paper was developed for CMS. Its validation and the inherent uncertainties are also discussed. The demonstration of the performance of the technique is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions collected by CMS in 2017 at root s = 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 41.5 fb(-1).Peer reviewe